One of the questions that always arises following any protest is the number in attendance, with supporters always inflating the figure, and opponents underestimating it. While Business Week’s and organizers’ estimate of 100,000 overshot the mark by tens of thousands. Having walked around the anti-Fidesz protest at the Opera building last night, my guess would be somewhere around 40,000, with a potential for more since it was difficult to tell how many were in side streets.
Despite these numbers, the protest was apparently not large enough for government members to have to use the rumored “tunnel escape route”, as they simply left via the rear exit, with the Index crew even managing a brief interview with state secretary for the Prime Minister’s Office Mihály Varga, who when prompted said he was not the person to ask about when Index’s banning from parliament would be lifted, but that he would raise the issue.
Police were well behaved with only a small contingent wearing riot gear, but it was quite apparent that although they did not prevent people from attending the protest, they certainly did not make it easy for them to get there, blocking many access routes, aside from if a person was coming from the Oktogon. A Politics.hu staffer encountered police blocking streets along Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út, and I witnessed this firsthand as I tried to make my way to the Opera building along Paulay Ede utca.
The fact that people had to take indirect routes could also be the explanation for why state television MTV’s reporter was unable to find the protest.
